NYPD watchdog blames racial profiling by cops for nearly 90% of defendants being people of color, study says

Group finds 90% of those arrested by NYPD and prosecuted are minorities. (Scott Roth/Invision/AP)

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A watchdog group blamed the “longstanding problem of stark racial bias in NYPD tactics” for the vast disparity in minorities prosecuted by the city.

The Police Reform Organizing Project says its members sat in on more than 5,000 criminal court cases since 2014, and found nearly nine out of 10 cases involved people of color. There were 4,645 minority defendants in the 5,162 cases observed at arraignment courts in all the boroughs except Staten Island, according to a report released Tuesday.

Most of those cases involved low-level charges like marijuana possession, driving with a suspended license and theft of services – and in nearly 90% of those cases, the suspects were released or made bail that day, “demonstrating that neither the judges nor the district attorneys consider the defendants a threat to public safety,” the report said.

“New York’s district attorneys aggressively prosecute cases against black and brown people for engaging in mainly innocent or innocuous activities,” the report added. “On a regular basis, our city’s courts devote their considerable resources to the administration of injustice, applying sanctions in hundreds, if not thousands, of cases where the charges involve, at worst, petty infractions and where the defendants are almost always people of color, some of whom live on the margins of society.”

Project director Robert Gangi, who ran for mayor in the city's Democratic primary last year, said progressive politicians like Mayor de Blasio haven’t followed through on their police reform promises.

“Every day that New York City’s political leaders sidestep this issue, our so-called criminal justice system continues its abusive and discriminatory practices,” said Gangi, who garnered just 3% of the vote against de Blasio.

The NYPD rebutted Gangi’s report, claiming that the department does not engage in racial profiling.

“The NYPD enforces the law fairly and equally, and works tirelessly every day to keep every resident and every neighborhood safe,” an NYPD spokeswoman said Tuesday. “The NYPD is also committed to building trust between police and the community, whether by dramatically reducing stop-and-frisk by more than 90%; by providing more than 8,000 officers with fair and impartial training; or by implementing a new neighborhood policing strategy that bring cops and community closer together through mutual respect and partnership. This commitment will only intensify moving forward – demonstrating that in New York City, we can drive crime to record low levels and strengthen the bond between police and residents.”